In announcing a separation from the US, the Philippine’s President Duterte recently flagged a closer relationship with China, stating, ‘America has lost…I’ve realigned myself in your [China’s] ideological flow’. Although Duterte subsequently walked back from …
A transformation in military space capabilities is occurring hundreds of kilometres above the Earth’s surface as the US Air Force X-37B Space Plane logs over 500 days in orbit in its latest mission. The unmanned …
The 2016 Defence White Paper (DWP16) signals that ‘options to replace the Super Hornets in the late 2020s will be considered in the early 2020s in the light of developments in technology and the strategic …
The Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte’s erratic foreign and defence policy is lurching from one foreign policy crisis to the next. There’s deepening concern about extrajudicial killings that are piling bodies up and tarnishing the …
A common refrain when discussing the future of airpower is that ‘the F-35 is the last manned fighter’ and the future belongs to unmanned systems. The expanding use of unmanned air systems (UAS) such as …
After the Abbott government approved the purchase of 72 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for the RAAF, its fast jet capability was locked in for years to come. From around 2020, the F-35s will join 24 …
The findings of the South China Sea Arbitration conducted at The Hague refutes China claim of indisputable sovereignty, and invalidates the ‘nine-dash line’ as a mechanism to delineate that claim—a heavy defeat for China. As …
Australia uses satellites to support national defence, economic, and scientific activities, but isn’t a ‘space power’ that can provide independent space systems for national needs. The Department of Industry, Innovation and Scientific Research’s 2015 ‘State …
In an earlier article, I considered Australia’s potential options to replace the RAAF’s 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets in the late 2020s as mandated in the 2016 Defence White Paper (4.42). Options could include manned aircraft, …
Rodrigo Duterte’s victory in the Philippines’ Presidential elections has introduced new uncertainty into Asia’s security outlook. The populist strongman from Davao, which is the largest city in Mindanao, is nicknamed ‘The Punisher’ and ‘Duterte Harry’ …
The Australian defence community has been rightly focused this past fortnight on the Turnbull Government’s announcement of the winner—France’s DCNS—of the Competitive Evaluation Process (CEP) to secure the contract for building Australia’s future submarine. But …
With the outcome of the long-awaited SEA 1000 Competitive Evaluation Process seeing France’s DCNS announced as the international design partner for the future submarines, Australia must now manage the diplomatic fallout with the two failed …
